This session looks at how meeting a solution’s functional requirements is only half of the story and meeting its non-functional requirements is what ensures operational success after deployment. These requirements, also known as quality attributes, cover areas such as availability, manageability, scalability and security, and compliment your business requirements. This session looks at Microsoft data platform features with demos to show how whether you’re a data platform developer or administrator, or technical architect they can help you meet these quality requirements

Gavin Payne is a principal architect working for Coeo, a UK SQL Server consultancy, and is a Microsoft Certified Architect and Microsoft Certified Master. His role is to lead, design, and implement solutions that enhance, optimise, and consolidate mission critical information platforms.

19:15 Break

19:30 Chris Webb - Everything you wanted to know about Power BI but were too afraid to ask

You’ve probably seen a lot of Power BI demos and been wowed by 3D maps, cool dashboards and tales of working with millions of rows of data in Excel. But do you actually know what Power BI is? Where does Office 365 fit in? Does your data have to be stored in the cloud? Which versions of Excel do you need? How does it compare to corporate BI tools like Reporting Services and Analysis Services? This session will answer all of these questions and more, and help you understand whether Power BI is right for you.

Chris Webb is an independent consultant and trainer based in the UK. He has over fifteen years' experience with the Microsoft BI stack and has worked in a variety of roles across a wide range of industries. A regular speaker at user groups and conferences around the world, such as the PASS Summit and the PASS Business Analytics Conference, he also is one of the organizers of the SQLBits conference and has received Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for nine years running. He is the co-author of several books such as "MDX Solutions", "Expert Cube Development with SQL Server Analysis Services" and "SQL Server Analysis Services 2012: The BISM Tabular Model", and blogs about Microsoft BI at http://cwebbbi.wordpress.com. More information about his consultancy can be found at http://www.crossjoin.co.uk and his training courses at http://www.technitrain.com.